The Smiley Smile Message Board

If you're so inclined, have a listen to "Cardamom Coffee" at https://soundcloud.com/the-beau-mondes/cardamom-coffee (https://soundcloud.com/the-beau-mondes/cardamom-coffee)

Cardamom is an under-appreciated spice, and I appreciate your bringing attention to it. Soon it will join the ranks of some all star spices, nutmeg & allspice.  :hat

I like that a lot.  Inspired by the Winter?  Heck (not the word I would have used if this place wasn't censored)... here's the line anyway:  Heck, this Winter is making a mess of us all!  Choosing to live in the northern states can be challenging.  Had to go out for a bottle of milk this evening.  About 20 degrees with a hard wind blowing snow in your face, wind chill is "who knows" - just really bad.  You want to say heck it, but ya got fresh baked cookies, and that needs milk.  First step, a slippery on ice step down the stairs and across the yard, then scrap off the windshield, dig snow away from the back tires so you can get the car rolling, as opposed to just spinning, get down the back road, still covered with ice cause the plows didn't do a very good job last night or this morning, there sure wasn't any sunlight to melt it away...  No, really, I love Winter.  I made it back safe.  It was rewarding, much the same as you must have felt getting another song under your belt and onto a tape.


Now, don't say I could have just had a cup of Cardamom Coffee with those cookies and saved myself the trouble.  I know you're thinking that.  For cookies I want milk.  Winter can't get in my way.

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I've experienced more below zero days in the past month than in my whole life.  Usually we just have a couple.

I'm from the South.  Then I spent about twenty-three years living in "the weather never changes" California sun.  I've been in upstate New York since 1998.  But I have never lived through colder days than February 2015.  And maybe not this much snow in one season either.  It's snowing right now, been snowing all day.  Snowed yesterday.  I went out yesterday for the first time in a week.  The milk story was fact.  We stock-up groceries between storms.  There are mountains of snow, but not as bad as Boston.  But you do have to sneak out into the road to get a look past the mountains of snow on the corners to see if another car is coming.  The County plows can't do much more than keep up.  The main roads and thruways are kept fairly clear.  Then it starts snowing again... Tonight's forecast is for the snow to change into raining ice.  Lovely.  I'm staying in.

I forget.  You're in Eastern Canada, right?  With the lake effect.  Must be wild up there.  Letterman said the other night, "We're not expecting it to thaw out til Labor Day."  I would love to go up to Niagara Falls to see it frozen over.  Film just shows so much.

My earlier post was me trying to be funny (and I really did like the captain's new song).  Listened to it again just now.  I do like the snow.  That's why I moved here.  I'd never lived anywhere that you didn't have to drive to get in the snow.  It's just a challenge.

take care Zach, Will

Thanks, feelsflow, for the nice compliments.

Actually in Minneapolis, it hasn't been that bad a winter. (Ducks to avoid snowballs the rest of the nation throws.) Less snow than usual, not as cold as usual. Last year, we kept getting cold and some snow into May, so it's not as if we usually have it good. But this year, not bad. It's just that we finally got cold beginning in the second week of February, and it has been persistent since then. So after a mild winter, to suddenly see the days lengthen but the cold deepen, that has been rough on the spirit.

As for what inspired the song, though? Mostly just the matter-of-fact first couple lines--I just didn't feel like going to work, so I didn't--and the "oh oh oh" thing that was in my head. The rest was just tossed together around it, typical luther slop.

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Sounds like our winter last year. Brutal cold.

Re the bassline, thanks. I quite liked that part, too. The chords are F# ' F#7 ' / B ' D ' / A ' ' ' / E7 ' ' ' / F# ' ' ' / B7 ' ' ' / E7 ' ' ' / and I really liked that little ascending line, too.

Re the piano, it's real. The beauty of lazy and basic engineering: you get what you get. I have a console piano and just put a pair of mics over it, right and left. If it takes me more than about two minutes to set anything up, I just don't record. So it doesn't take me more than two minutes to set anything up, ever. As long as I'm just fucking around like this and demoing (and endless supply of) sh*t, it doesn't matter anyway. So it's basic setup and first not-abhorrent take everywhere.

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So you can say fucking here.